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Halbrand’s first instinct when he steps out of the carriage before the great manor is to sneeze. The cloying scent of flowers, overwhelming in the late spring, an onslaught to his sensitive nose. A pleasant scent, but overmuch.
His jaw clicks, sharp teeth meshing together. He wonders, not unkindly, whether whatever emits this scent is safe to be in his sphere. A dormant urge awakens deep within him, but sensibility smothers it down like a face in a pillow of polite society upbringing.
A butler welcoming the guests just inside is brushed off, the scent growing stronger. Halbrand breathes in, lungs filling with the scent, his animal attention honing in on it. He hardly spares the society a second glance, his body wending through the rooms of the manor on a mission.
Gilded frames filled with portraits of greatness long passed, eyes following one down the hallway, candlelight reflecting off parquet floors. The enduring Noldor dynasty spread out along the hall is meant to incite wonder and respect for a family so everlasting, but Halbrand finds it unnerving.
His body leads with a purpose, the scent growing ever stronger, a deep rumble from his chest has him pausing briefly, shocked, and the severity of this moment he treads through pressing down on his shoulders. The painted Noldors watch in silence.
A door on his left, heavy oak carved with leaves and flames, an amalgamation of rebirth, it’s cracked, warm light bleeding into the hall.
She’s on a settee, fingers playing with the tassel on her fan. The scent of her blooms, enveloping Halbrand in a cloud of warmth, of sweetness, of home.
The omega freezes, her head turning towards him as he approaches.
“And what have we here? A pretty thing like you kept away from the rest?” He bends at the waist, a hand on the wall, he needs to be closer, he needs to be inside.
“Crowds overwhelm me. I subject myself to them in small increments.” Her voice is soft, her countenance lovely. Piercing blue eyes that are spring-clear and dawn-bright. Golden curls piled atop her head, pins nestled along her tresses begging for him to pluck out one by one. A strong nose beckoning his soft kiss. The need to divest her of her emerald gown cascades over him. His teeth ache.
“Is this your first season? I don’t believe we’ve met.” Please, give me your name, confirm what I suspect.
“Lady Galadriel of House Noldor,” A blush at her cheeks and his mouth waters. She’s mine, she’s mine, she’s mine— “I’ve been away in France for three seasons, my aunt has been sickly.”
A racing feeling of triumph, of remembrance, courses through him. The ball she’d been presented to society at, the rumored Noldor omega, a veritable princess by her mating potential alone. Halbrand appreciates her beauty now, how she’s lost the last of her girlish charm and blossomed into something sleek, something alluring, over the three years since he’d seen her. She’d only grown more lovely, more ready to ruin.
“All dressed up and needing to make up for lost time, hm? Shall I show you what you’ve been missing?” He condescends to her, delighting in playing, angles his head to the door, to the dancing.
“I’m quite content right here, sir.” Her good manners send blood straight to his cock.
“And do you know who I am?” His hand grabs her chin, turning her face to his, leaning closer to her—
“Alpha,” she breathes, eyes fluttering closed.
His lips hover a breath over hers, a tension building within him, his canines are sharp and ready to cut against the flesh of his tongue, ready to tear into delicate flesh, a delicate gland.
But he pulls back, chest heaving, and it is with every ounce of his willpower that allows him to do so. This scent of hers, already committed to memory, calls to him in a way he knows is ruinous. He must speak with her father, must negotiate a dowry, must get her in front of a preacher for the legal half of a marriage so that he might rush towards the mating half, the claiming half, the only part that really matters.
His.
He takes a small step back, allowing space between them. Her eyes open, tongue wetting her lips, and Halbrand knows he would commit horrific acts to feel that tongue on his body, even if only for a moment. Her body language, Halbrand thinks amusedly, already showing how much she desires him, wonders if she is driven half mad by his scent like he is with hers. “This must be a reintroduction this evening then.”
“I’m already out, technically, though I’ve been gone for some time each season.”
“Your aunt in France,” Halbrand says with a knowing nod.
“According to the family,” Galadriel’s eyes dart away from his, her cheeks heating in shame, some buried truth lying in wait. Halbrand’s eyebrows pull together in confusion.
“I do not think I fully understand,” he says, trying to catch her eye again, stooping lower to no avail. She is rooted in her discomfort and some urge deep within him pushes him to soothe, to reassure.
She isn’t his, not yet, and he must abide by polite courtesy and rules for unclaimed omegas. Halbrand will do this properly or he won’t do it at all, damn whatever nature wishes for him to do. He will not live up to his Dark Lord nickname, won’t stoop to the society’s ghastly opinion of his inclinations and tastes.
“The beginning of each season these past three years have been rather….difficult,” she swallows, chin dipping down, “I always—er, well, I’ve found myself in a…heat,” her cheeks are crimson, voice full of self-deprecating ridicule. He doesn’t grasp it—cannot fathom why—
“But there isn’t anything to be ashamed of with that, little rosebud,” the pet name escapes before Halbrand has a chance to clamp down on it, and curse it all to hell, “why are you so timid about this?”
“The family didn’t want to risk untoward attention, or the possibility of some nobleman taking liberties without going the decent way of courting…and so I was sent to France each summer to be with my aunt.” Her shame is palpable. “So that I may…convalesce and recover from my affliction.”
He doesn’t deign the absurdity of calling a most natural behavior an affliction with a response. “And you never went out with French society?”
“No, no. The family wouldn’t want me to wed a Frenchman. There’s more alphas here in England anyhow. I’m the first Noldor omega in five generations, both a shame and something covetous in equal measures. My marriage is highly argued about, all that seems to be talked about these days, really. I’m twenty-one. I’m not getting any younger, and the only thing I’m useful for as a woman is alliances through marriage and begetting pups to some powerful alpha-lord,” Galadriel has half turned away from him in her speech, words tumbling out of her like they’d been kept at the back of her mouth for days waiting to escape. An illusion begins of her growing several inches taller in her disdain for her family’s view of her, her shoulders straightening and chin turned up despite facing away from him, all serving to entice him more.
Her quiet rage and strength makes his blood begin to burn, his need growing within him. Her neck is exposed now, a scent gland on full display, not swollen like it will be in a heat, but a gentle rise along her skin, whispering for him to bite.
“And is that what you want? To be married off to some alpha-lord?” His head tilts to the side, eyes narrowing, attention wholly fixed upon her gland. Halbrand knows his tone has dropped, words nothing more than a growl, instigating a fight with the omega to get her angry, to make her temperature rise, to get her to give off more of her tantalizing smell .
He’ll acquiesce to the society’s allegations of his greed.
Her head whips around, her nostrils flaring, and utter delight bursts high in his chest as Halbrand watches Galadriel assess him, reading his face, his body language, a true social woman. A true prey-animal, scenting out potential danger. His mouth waters again. He shall find her father immediately.
A dark gleam in her eye is his only warning before she steps back, shoulders pushed down and spine straight, chest rising in a large breath of air, his attention falling to her breasts, small but pushing up around the emerald neckline, the stays doing wonders, and she pitches her voice lower, huskier, placating and inviting and all omega, “I’ll have to go find one and find out. Good evening, sir.”
His ears fill with a dull ring, his vision sharpening, his stunned body frozen as she slinks around him before leaving, her heels clicking over wood as she makes her way down the hallway filled with her ancestors, towards revelers and awaiting eyes, awaiting mouths. The idea of some other alpha trying to stake a claim on what his most base parts of himself know to be his has him seeing red. Lightning quick and he’s out of the room, stalking after his prey, her gloved hands grasped behind her back. He watches her shoulders tense, knows she feels the predator hunting her through the hall.
She picks up her pace, satin slipper-clad feet moving faster.
He follows, a shadow ready to envelop her.
He wraps one hand around her upper arm, spinning her towards him as she gasps, ready to argue against his audacity, but before she can get a word out he pulls her into him, his head coming down to the crook of her neck, mouth open and against smooth flesh.
His teeth press against blessed skin, smooth and warm and encouraging him to bite, and he feels Galadriel freeze, a fawn before a wolf. Halbrand tightens his hold on her, one hand holding her neck firmly and the other pulling her shoulders closer to him. Closer, but not enough.
“Sir—” Galadriel chokes out, voice strained, “ Alpha, please.”
Her voice is nearly shrill, her pulse thrumming between his lips. He presses down, canines digging, seeking purchase. A strangled gasp by the small thing in his arms, Galadriel smart enough to freeze.
“You will not tempt another man. You are mine, do you hear me?” His mouth still at her neck, lips never losing contact, his words skitter across her skin, chased by goosebumps rising. She defers to the authority in his voice.
“Sir—Alpha—I—”
He pushes away from her, chest heaving, realizing just how close to marking her he is at this moment, time bending in the hall with her. And what if someone had seen? What would they tell her father before he got a chance to speak with him?
“ Behave.” He growls before storming off towards the ballroom, Halbrand on a warpath with destiny.
~
Halbrand lies in wait. An interlude, as his eyes track Galadriel’s form as she prances across the floor of the ballroom, of him speaking heatedly to the great Finarfin, bartering his omega.
“And what use have I for a lord for a son-in-law when I could have a prince? A king?” Finarfin snarls at him, his chest puffed and mirroring Halbrand’s.
Galadriel’s sire calls upon a potential match with the crown prince, an alpha in perhaps a different league if only because of his rank. Halbrand’s stomach drops, but only for a moment. A breath of time wherein he feels failure, utter failure, for the first time in his life. A crushing shame at his lowly title compared to that of the royal family. This new feeling of inadequacy was washing over him at the prospect of not winning, of not getting what he wants simply because he desired it. Of being bested despite his privilege. A small voice in his head, a piece of information offered up to him at his hour of need from deep within the depths of his memory, a conversation with an old friend a few days ago coming to the forefront of his mind.
“I would expect a sire to want no less for his precious omega pup, if it weren’t for the prince already marking a palace maid,” a satisfied smirk he cannot hold back showing his mirth at the court intrigue.
Finarfin’s eyebrows knit, his surprise plain across his face, “Prince Celeborn would never deign to—”
“She was in heat, couldn’t get off the palace grounds fast enough. A lapse in control.”
“And I’m meant to believe you?” Finarfin asks.
“I would never lie to my father-in-law,” Halbrand says solemnly, hand on his heart.
~
One moment Galadriel is talking with her mother near a window, and the next she is gone, fleeing without bidding her now-intended goodnight, candlelight making her incandescent amongst the others in the room.
The scent hits Halbrand, his knees almost buckling.
She was in the start of a heat.
A warmth to her scent, the bloom of tuberose bleeding with an amber resin—a wave of color exploding behind Halbrand’s eyelids as he takes a deep breath in and savors the change like a fine wine. His heart sings, his cock stirring. He opens his eyes, knowing what will happen. Halbrand has secured his bride formally, dowry negotiated, but knows now that he’ll not shake his moniker, that he’ll go against societal guidelines, will bed this omega before being bound under the eyes of god.
Halbrand ignores his in-laws, knowing they’ll grow to forgive him, and even if they don't, the deal is done. A pre-written contract signed in Finarfin’s parlor. A glance around at the others present, at the other unmated alphas, tells Halbrand that they haven’t scented her heat yet.
Good.
He turns towards the arching doorway Galadriel fled through, his stride long and purposeful. He would not run like a pup, he could control himself in this alone. A grand staircase, thick oak banisters carved with lions, guarding the upper level of the estate. Halbrand is on the main floor in one breath, and turning at the top of the stairs in the next, angling towards the strengthening scent. His mouth waters, his fingers curling, his nostrils flare. He commits this to memory, this scent calling to him like a siren, greedily inhaling more until his whole body fills with it.
A lady’s maid stands guard in the hallway, a fierce gleam to her eye. “My lord, I shall ring for the Master of this es—”
“Do. Tell him to send everyone home. Galadriel is in such a delicate state, isn’t she?” Halbrand’s voice is low, gravelly, severe.
“I cannot let you through,” her chin up, arms crossed, and it’s almost cute, almost funny.
“I think you’ll find a document in your Master’s parlor that will permit me. Perhaps you should go find it,” he replies, skirting around the lady’s maid with ease.
She begins a protest, but Halbrand calls out with a “Weren’t you just going to tell your Master about his dear daughter?” before continuing on.
He doesn’t remember much else of the path he takes, the time between the staircase to her chambers, only registers his hand grasping a door handle, pushing into a room beholding the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. He shuts the door behind him, sliding a lock into place, his eyes not leaving the writhing body before him.
Her hair has half fallen from it’s pinnings, long blond pieces of hair sticking to her feverish skin,
“Wretched man—you forced a heat with your handling of me, you forced— ah— god, please, please I need—” Galadriel’s words become reedy, chest heaving, her eyes glazed over and chest flushed, the skirts of her dress heavy and damp from slick.
“Oh, sweet girl, darling thing, tell me what you need, tell your alpha what you want,” He begins walking towards the four poster bed she lays on, pillows all around her, bed linens pulled from perfect tucking into a twisted arrangement, a nest of her design. “Did you make this for me? This perfect nest? Just for me to fuck you in?” Halbrand’s restraint is thin, stretched too tight across his physical needs, his physical desires.
Galadriel doesn’t shy away from the cursing, only nods fervently at the praise, at the promise of him buried within her. A strong wave of her essence washes over him as her desire spikes, bathing him in that heady floral scent. She whimpers and he snaps, his overcoat and shirt ripped off of him before he covers his omega with his body, a warm thrill shooting through him at the contact.
Her hands skitter across the expanse of his skin, fingers finding his neck and digging her nails in, pulling him closer, trying to meld herself to him, liquid metals mixing. He groans as he kisses her, her sweet mouth opening to him on instinct. He spends precious seconds exploring her mouth, his own hands tracing the edge of her dress at her breast, ready to rip the satin clean from her. His lips trail to her chin, down the column of her neck, sucking on the now-swelling scent gland there, teasing for what shall soon come. His cock throbs, hard and weeping within his trousers already. Galadriel turns her head into a pillow, giving him easier access, her body pliant.
“Alpha,” Galadriel whispers, voice desperate, “please, just—just mount me already, I beg you, I beg you, I can’t go through another heat without relief, without your knot—”
Halbrand is stunned by the filth from his omega’s mouth, a proper well-bred lady indeed. He pulls back from her, his hands still on her dress, and before Galadriel can cry out her dismay, a resounding rip fills the room as he frees her from the stunning emerald gown, her body unspooling before him.
“Oh, look at you,” Halbrand whispers in wonder, eyes taking in her chest, her peaked nipples, breasts rising with her short gasps, ready to be smothered by his mouth. He tugs the remains of the gown from her body, her stockings tied at her thighs with cream ribbons the only thing on her as he tosses the dress to the ground, the fabric landing with a slap from the slick coating the skirt. “I’m undone, Galadriel. Look at you.”
In her nakedness he appraises her, the heat-flush covers her in an appealing pink, blood under her skin ready for him to savor, to claim. Her cunt, exposed to him now, puffy and weeping and wet with slick, so ready for him, for his knot. Galadriel squirms, another whimper escaping her. Another plea for his attention. Sweat beads at her brow, and he bends close again, licking a bead of sweat trailing along her neck. Ignoring pomp and circumstance, of foreplay and prolonging the experience of their first time, Halbrand kicks off his trousers before settling between his omega’s legs. “We have a lifetime of pleasure, sweet girl, I need to be inside you, I cannot wait.”
“Yes,” Galadriel says, “yes.”
He pushes a leg up, his hand wrapped around her knee, the other lining himself up with her core, his knot already swollen. A fresh wave of slick, warm and sticky and smelling of her spreads across the tops of his thighs.
“ Halbrand, please. ”
He keeps eye contact as he pushes inside her tight cunt, unable to withstand waiting any longer, and a growl rumbles through his chest. Inch by inch he spears her over himself, pushing deep within her, the tight fit aided by the slide of her slick, a wet sound filling the room.
“Sweet, merciful lord,” Galadriel says in a strangled voice as she is split upon her alpha.
He bottoms out for the moment, his knot rubbing against the puffy lips of her ambrosial cunt in a tease, and his world fractures. His perception becomes hazy, a frenzy building within him, and he hardly gives Galadriel time to acclimate before he pulls out and slams back into her, gentle and easing care of a virgin be damned. The need to fuck, to claim, clouds his senses, a darkness opening up within him, falling into his Dark Lord name as he ruts into the small woman under him, understands why others might be spurred to call him as such. Hard, fast, he barely registers the nails drawing blood at his biceps, at the cries of pleasure from his omega.
“Little pup-cunt becoming grown up, isn’t it, Galadriel? Twenty-one doesn’t feel so grown now, does it? But look at you, taking my cock like a good little omega, like a good little wife.”
“I, oh, Alpha, please, please.”
“So courteous even in a heat, even on a cock, how lucky I am to claim you, hm?” Halbrand croons, voice dark and heavy, lips at her ear, body pressed to hers, needing to be closer still. He pulls back for a moment and pushes the leg he holds up, pinning her thigh with his body, her other bent up by his waist. She is half folded, so pliant to him, a perfect doll for his fucking needs.
He continues his brutal pace, a rut in an honest sense, his mind and body overtaken with the need to dig deeper within her, carve out a space for him and his seed deep within her womb, get her full, beget her a pup. His hips snap feverishly, slick covering the both of them from below the waist, a squelching mess of bodies and cunt and alpha pride.
Galadriel drags her leg down, wrapping herself around her alpha as best as she’s able, receiving him so thoroughly, begging for his knot, begging for his come, begging for her own release. “Please, Alpha, please, I need it, I need it—”
As her cunt flutters at the start of her release, he gives one final, mighty push and works his knot into her, sealing their bodies into one, his own climax barreling through him, hot ropes of come emptied deep within the little omega beneath him with no chance of any of it wasted outside of her. He will breed her within an inch of her life like any respected alpha should, nearly orgasming again at the thought of his pup growing within her as they are wed properly before a preacher. He grunts, his world centering, reshaping around this woman beneath him. An overwhelming protectiveness bubbles up through his chest, this need to protect, to reassure his omega-
His mouth is at her scent gland in a blink, teeth breaking skin, blood flooding his mouth, blood tasting of iron and amber both, a groan reverberating as he swallows it, a piece of her within him. Galadriel shrieks before a wanton sound ekes from her, her legs tightening around his waist, a sob as she babbles Alpha, Alpha, Alpha in his hair, her nose buried in the brown locks. He feels her come again, a sensitive thing.
They do not move from this position, his knot swelling ever-large inside her cunt, his teeth buried in her neck, his own being trying desperately to bind with hers. If only he could sink into her body forever, harbored by the warmth and softness. Galadriel cards her fingers through his hair, murmuring sweet nothings to him. His soul feels settled, content and like it fits inside his body correctly for the first time in his life. The sense of belonging, of being mated, tumbles him headlong into sleep, his weight a comfort to his omega pressed within her nest, his mouth still latched to her throat.
A whimper wakes him, and Halbrand finds Galadriel desperately seeking friction against his cock still deep in her. He rolls them, Galadriel laying atop him, her hands on his chest. “Go on, sweetheart, take what you need from your Alpha.”
She learns fast what her body needs, grinding against him until she finds release again, the heat ever-present between them. Her pants and whimpers and moans a beautiful symphony to his ears. She makes quick work despite being limited by his knot, a maddening sequence of her grinding, his hand snaking down to her clit to help her along, his other hand at her waist to keep her upright. And god, the feel of her leaves him seeing stars, his head light from bliss. He’s unsure how he’ll survive this, this unending lust, unending climax. Her belly is filled again, now beginning to protrude with all of his seed. A satisfied growl from him, proud Alpha sound, at the sight of his breeding. Dried blood mixing with sweat, slick tacky between them, The scent of sex and debauchery heavy in the air, Halbrand has made a mess of the omega atop him. Tuberose and amber resin and frankincense and orange. A blend of the both of them, a new start, alpha and omega and beginning and end.
She settles once more, the wave of heat abating, and she leans down, laying against his chest, her ear at his heart. The new angle sends a shiver up his spine, but he doesn’t dare grind into her more, not as her breaths become even and deep, not as she finds respite from her nature for just a moment. He’ll wait until she wakes again. For her, he will wait.
Has already waited three years.